Blog: Wes’s thoughts, articles, and insights

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My most recent posts

AI is a journey, not a destination

By Wes Trochlil | April 15, 2026

AI is a journey, not a destination Lately I’ve noticed a lot of associations talking about AI like it’s a moon shot. “We need an AI project.” “We’re rolling out AI in Q4.” That language suggests AI is something you implement once and then check off the list. It isn’t. AI is a journey, and […]

Action produces information

By Wes Trochlil | April 8, 2026

Action produces information “Action produces information. If you’re unsure of what to do, just do anything, even if it’s the wrong thing. This will give you information about what you should actually be doing.” – Brian Armstrong, co-founder of Coinbase This is the great thing about data and why I’ve been in this business so long. […]

Why a single source of truth is so beneficial…

By Wes Trochlil | March 25, 2026

Why a single source of truth is so beneficial… The holy grail of data management is the “single source of truth.” As I like to characterize it, when someone asks “Where is the data about X?” everyone knows the answer and everyone gives the SAME answer. One of the most common challenges I hear from my […]

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should

By Wes Trochlil | March 18, 2026

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should I’ve worked in and with associations for well over 37 years now. And one of the things I’ve always loved and appreciated about association staffers is their willingness to do whatever is needed to get the job done. But the problem is this “Yes, we can!” attitude can also […]

Data doesn’t need to be perfect to be useful

By Wes Trochlil | March 4, 2026

Data doesn’t need to be perfect to be useful “Your data doesn’t have to be perfect to be useful.” – (Borrowed with permission from Intellidata’s Slice newsletter.) In my experience, many associations hold themselves back from cleaning up their data, because they are overwhelmed with where to start, and they also think success can only be achieved […]

Older Posts

Great New Book Published by ASAE

January 24, 2008

Just received my copy of the book Membership Essentials from ASAE. The book is a collection of writings by association […]

Hot IT Trends for 2008 – The BI Buzz

January 22, 2008

SearchCIO-midmarket.com has a list of five hot IT trends for 2008, and surprise, surprise, business intelligence is on the list. […]

The rule of 100 and 1000

January 17, 2008

One of the steps during the database implementation process is data conversion. Part of the data conversion process is identifying which […]

Why you can't eliminate dupes

January 15, 2008

I’ll frequently hear from my clients and other database managers, “Our members keep creating duplicate records of themselves, rather than […]

About This Blog

January 11, 2008

This weblog is focused on the association management system (AMS) software market. The objective of this blog is to provide […]

Establishing a Users Group

January 11, 2008

Anyone who has heard me speak about database management systems knows that I’m a big fan of users groups. One […]

NTEN's CRM Satisfaction Survey is Released

January 7, 2008

I recently received a copy of NTEN’s CRM Satisfaction survey (you can get your own copy here). Here are my […]

Are you *really* listening?

December 13, 2007

Part of my job is to conduct interviews of database users. Another part of my job is to sit in […]

Testing your Training

December 11, 2007

Associations spend a lot of time and money on training (or at least they should). But I wonder if any […]

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